I’ve begun the process of building some various small Shaker Style projects for some customers. Mainly pine. I wanted to use milk paint which I’ve used before, having bought it commercially. But, the stuff costs about $9 a pint or you could say $54 a gallon (2 pints per quart, 4 quarts per gallon). So, I thought that after looking at several recipes online I could easily make my own and according to the articles, “much, much cheaper!!”. Okay, depending on the recipe, you might use a combination of milk, casein, vinegar, borax, water, and hydrated lime. Sounds cheap, right?. Oh! and “powdered pigment”, BUT, it must be, “LIMEPROOF”. Now all of a sudden it gets real expensive. For a recipe of 1 3/4 quarts, you need 200 grams by weight of powdered pigments. Online a blue pigment costs ONLY $90 for 500G, so I can make a couple of quarts for about $100! So a gallon is $200? Makes, the $9 a pint sound really, really cheap!!

Now, obviously I’ve missed something. Where do you get the pigments without costing an arm…and a leg? So, I started thinking, could your use watercolors, food coloring, RIT cloth dye, concrete dyes, blueberries, tempura paint, or maybe even water based wood stains? Or, do I just shut up and call Highland Hardware and buy some milkpaint?

SHUT UP & CALL HIGHLAND. To make it even more expensive get the stuff that makes it stick better on the first coat. The milk paint is terrific and sticks forever..once it wears thru, the layer under looks fantastic…It’s an A-1 product.

Les Casteel, try this company, they are a little cheaper than your source and have a color range to boot.http://www.realmilkpaint.com/powder.htmlAt least you can try your hand at making your own, without hocking your shop.

-- Methods are many,Principles are few.Methods change often,Principles never do.

Get the commercial product. Or, put another way, once people learn that they can buy it cheaper than they could make it, they simply order it. One of our Guild members makes chairs, and orders ALL of it. One thing to remember is the limited pot time. So, plan your work and don’t let it get hard on you (the paint…)